News & Highlights

This section presents news and highlights from SPRC and the suicide prevention field. Use the filters on the left to find the following items:

  • Weekly Spark, SPRC’s online newsletter, containing brief news articles, research summaries, announcements, and funding opportunities. Subscribe to the Weekly Spark.
  • Director’s Corner, a monthly column by SPRC leadership and guest authors.
  • From the Field, innovative activities being implemented in states, communities, healthcare organizations, and other settings.

Displaying 36 results. Refine results using the filters on the left.

Weekly Spark

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Suicide Attempts

December 22, 2017
A new study found that adults who had experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) were more likely to have attempted suicide...
Weekly Spark

Childhood Maltreatment and Suicide Risk in the U.S. Army

December 15, 2017
A new study of young adults entering the U.S. Army revealed that childhood maltreatment is associated with lifetime suicidal behavior,...
Weekly Spark

Self-Harm Methods and Repeat Episodes

December 08, 2017
Recent findings from England suggest that patients who use a combination of self-poisoning and other self-harm methods (e.g., self-poisoning and...
Weekly Spark

Mortality Risk following Adversity-Related Injury

November 17, 2017
A study in England assessed mortality risk among adolescents following an accident- or adversity-related injury (i.e., self-inflicted, drug- or alcohol-related,...
Weekly Spark

The Virtual Hope Box

November 10, 2017
A recent study found that a smartphone app was more effective than print materials at improving veterans’ ability to cope...
Weekly Spark

Suicide in the U.S. Army

October 27, 2017
Recent data revealed that 79 percent of U.S. Army soldiers who died by suicide had a lifetime history of a...
Weekly Spark

Screening Young People for Suicide Risk

October 20, 2017
An analysis of screening data from more than 2,500 primary care patients ages 14 to 24 found that a web-based...
Weekly Spark

Crisis Center Follow-Up Calls Reduce Risk of Suicide

October 13, 2017
Follow-up telephone calls may be a safe and inexpensive method of helping crisis hotline callers who report suicidal ideation, according...
Weekly Spark

Means of Suicide among People 50 and Over

September 29, 2017
Researchers examined data from the National Violent Death Reporting System (2005–2014) on older adult suicide decedents to identify trends and...
Weekly Spark

Suicide among Current and Former Service Members

September 22, 2017
A study of nearly 3.8 million U.S. military personnel revealed that currently deployed service members were at lower risk of...
Weekly Spark

Physical Health and Risk of Suicide Death

September 15, 2017
An analysis of data from eight health care systems confirmed that many physical health conditions are associated with risk of...
Weekly Spark

Preventing Suicide in the Emergency Department

August 25, 2017
Emergency departments (EDs) can reduce suicide attempts among high-risk patients by delivering a combination of interventions that includes suicide risk...
Weekly Spark

State Firearms Laws and Suicide

August 21, 2017
A recent analysis found that the suicide rate decreased significantly in states that required both a background check and waiting...
Weekly Spark

Preventing Suicide on Railroad Tracks

August 11, 2017
According to the authors of a study in Canada, prevention efforts targeting railroad track locations where suicides take place would...
Weekly Spark

Self-Harm and Suicide

July 28, 2017
An analysis of Medicaid data found that adults treated for deliberate self-harm were 37.2 times more likely to die by...
Weekly Spark

Suicidal Ideation and Behavior among Young Adults

July 21, 2017
A recent study found that part-time college students, high school students, and young people ages 18 to 25 not enrolled...
Weekly Spark

Screening Older Adults in Emergency Departments

July 14, 2017
A study of universal suicide screening in emergency departments (EDs) found that the proportion of patients actually screened began to...
Weekly Spark

Using Electronic Health Records to Assess Suicide Risk

June 26, 2017
A research study found that electronic health record (EHR) information can serve as an “early warning system” to alert clinicians...
Weekly Spark

Policies Supporting Temporary Storage of Firearms

June 16, 2017
A study identified how state laws can support or interfere with the temporary voluntary transfer of firearms from the homes...
Weekly Spark

Unemployment, Foreclosures, Poverty, and Suicide Rates

June 09, 2017
New research suggests that poverty itself, rather than unemployment and foreclosures, contributed to the rise in the suicide rate during...
Weekly Spark

Comprehensive Suicide Prevention and Adverse Childhood Experiences

May 26, 2017
A recent commentary in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine suggests that the prevention of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is “a compelling...
Weekly Spark

Mental Health Environment of Care Checklist

May 19, 2017
A 2012 study revealed that implementation of the Mental Health Environment of Care Checklist (MHEOCC) reduced the suicide rate in...
Weekly Spark

Lethal Means Counseling by Physicians

May 12, 2017
An American Journal of Medicine commentary proposed that suicide in the United States could be reduced if physicians counseled at-risk individuals and...
Weekly Spark

Suicide Attempts Treated in Emergency Departments

April 28, 2017
A large multi-year analysis of National Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) data confirmed what previous smaller studies have concluded about the...
Weekly Spark

Same-Sex Marriage Policies and Adolescent Suicide Attempts

April 21, 2017
An analysis of Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System data from 1999 to 2015 revealed that state policies permitting same-sex marriage...
Weekly Spark

Alcohol Policies and Suicide

April 14, 2017
A review of the research concluded that policies restricting the availability of alcohol are associated with lower suicide rates. These...
Weekly Spark

Suicide and Alcohol Use during the Great Recession

March 31, 2017
According to a recent study, an increase in heavy alcohol use contributed to a rise in the suicide rate among...
Weekly Spark

Parental Psychiatric Disease and Risk of Suicide Attempts in Offspring

March 24, 2017
An analysis of a comprehensive dataset from Denmark revealed that people whose parents had a history of psychiatric illness or...
Weekly Spark

Suicide among Children and Early Adolescents

March 17, 2017
A study comparing children (aged 5 to 11) and early adolescents (aged 12 to 14) who died by suicide found...
Weekly Spark

Suicide Attempts and Dying by Suicide

March 10, 2017
A study found that 59.3 percent of people who died by suicide did so as a result of their first...
Weekly Spark

Suicide and Epilepsy

February 24, 2017
A study found that the annual rate of suicide among people with epilepsy was 22 percent higher than that of...
Weekly Spark

Firearm Ownership and Suicide

February 17, 2017
The authors of a state-by-state analysis “found a strong relationship between state-level firearm ownership and firearm suicide rates among both...
Weekly Spark

Risk Factors among Adolescents

February 10, 2017
An analysis of data from the 2010 Minnesota Student Survey developed risk profiles for four groups of students in the...
Weekly Spark

Suicide Prevention in the Israeli Military

January 26, 2017
According to the results of a recent evaluation, there was a 57 percent drop in the suicide rate among the...
Weekly Spark

Online Gatekeeping and Email Consultation

January 20, 2017
A study in Japan used online search-related advertisements to identify people at risk for suicide and offer them email consultations...
Weekly Spark

Sexual Orientation, Race, and Suicide Risk

January 13, 2017
Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) first-year college students have a higher risk of suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to...